UW-Madison alumna Turina Bakken is featured in the November/December 2015 issue of Our Lives Magazine. Bakken earned her Ph.D. from the School of Education's Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. The article, written by Bakken herself, channels through her childhood to her commitment to education and to others as a Vice Provost of Madison Area Technical College.

UW-Madison alumni Maria Lewis and Marsha Modeste have joined the faculty of Pennsylvania State University’s College of Education as assistant professors of education policy studies. Lewis earned her Ph.D. from the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, along with a J.D. from UW-Madison. Modeste also recently earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.

UW-Madison’s Paula White will be having an upcoming show, Dec. 8 to Jan. 22, in the School of Education Gallery. The theme of this show is, “Cuba Today: Caminando Por La Calle.” Through her photography, White shows life in Cuba today – what you would see and hear as you walk through the streets of Havana and beyond. White is the project manager for the Study of Iowa High Schools – a research project within the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), where she has worked for nearly 30 years. She also is an alumna of the School of Education, having earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Educational Policy Studies.

The Field Day Lab is now accepting applications for the 2016 Mini-game Design Fellowships. The Lab is awarding fourth- through eighth-grade teachers $1,000 in exchange for input on choosing concepts, brainstorming concepts and testing games. The director of the Field Day Lab, David Gagnon, received his master's degree in 2010 from the Department of Curriculum & Instruction.

UW-Madison School of Education alumna Leah Hellenbrand returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., where she was an invited guest at the White House Complex in the West Wing. Hellenbrand was part of a delegation from Janesville's Kennedy Elementary School, where she teaches third and fourth grade. Kennedy Elementary was one of only eight schools across the nation that earned the $10,000 innOVATION STEAM Grant Award.

Lois Weis and Kevin Anderson are being recognized by UW-Madison’s School of Education as top alumni award winners for 2015-16. The Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award recipient is Dr. Lois Weis, who is serving as a distinguished professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The Outstanding Recent Graduate Award is being presented to Dr. Kevin Anderson, who serves as the science education consultant at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

UW-Madison alumna Maria Lewis is the recipient of the prestigious Joseph C. Beckham Dissertation of the Year award. Lewis was recognized at the annual Education Law Association Conference in Cleveland, Ohio, on Nov. 6. She also delivered a presentation about her award-winning dissertation titled, “Navigating the grey area: A review of a school district’s documentation of the relationship between disability and student misconduct.” Lewis received her Ph.D. from the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy in 2014.

The work of UW-Madison faculty member Derrick Buisch and alumni Brenda Baker (’91) and Bird Ross (’92) will be on display at the Goodman Community Center throughout the month of November. The exhibit is titled, “Studio Relay-Replay.” For this particular exhibit, the artists have each made pieces that they then pass on to each other with the intention of “copying the work” in what they call a “studio relay.” The trio have created what they describe as "a visually dense and optically lush series of work that embodies a confluence of visual vocabularies."

The latest edition of Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine includes a wonderful and in-depth profile of UW-Madison alumna Ellen Moore. Moore earned a master’s in education and dance in 1951 after studying under the legendary Margaret H’Doubler. In 1926, under the leadership of H'Doubler, UW-Madison become the first university to offer a degree program in dance. Moore spent 1976 until 2005 teaching modern dance through UW-Madison’s Department of Continuing Studies.

UW-Madison alum Liza Wiemer will release her new book titled “HELLO?” on Nov. 10. “HELLO?,” published by Spencer Hill Contemporary, is a story that “weaves together five Wisconsin teens’ stories into a compelling narrative of friendship and family, loss and love, heartbreak and healing, serendipity, and ultimately hope.” Wiemer earned her degree in Elementary Education in 1986 from the School of Education.

UW-Madison alumna Martha Mock, an associate professor at the University of Rochester’s Warner School of Education and the director of the Institute for Transition, was recently honored with the Golisano Foundation’s first-ever Move to Include Award for promoting inclusion for people with intellectual and physical disabilities.

An article authored by UW-Madison alumna Hyunjin Kim was selected this past summer as the Best Paper for 2014 by The Australian Teacher Education Association. Kim earned her Ph.D. from the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Departments of Educational Psychology and Curriculum and Instruction in 2004. Kim is currently an assistant professor and the program coordinator of early childhood education with the University of Rhode Island’s Department of Human Development and Family Studies.

UW-Madison alumna Kathryn Huggett has been named the inaugural Robert Larner, M.D. ’42 Endowed Professor in Medical Education at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. She was honored during a ceremony earlier this month. This past summer, Huggett was named the inaugural director of the Teaching Academy at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. Huggett holds a Ph.D. in educational administration, now known as educational leadership and policy studies, from UW-Madison

UW-Madison alumnus and former faculty member Li Li Ji gave the prestigious Lardy Distinguished Lecture of Chemistry at South Dakota State University (SDSU) back in April 2015. Ji received his master’s (1982) and Ph.D. (1985) from the Department of Kinesiology, where he also served as associate professor from 1994 to 1997, and as a professor from 1997 to 2011. The Lardy Distinguished Lecture Series in Chemistry was established through an endowment from the late Henry A. Lardy, a former professor emeritus in the Biochemistry Department at UW-Madison.

UW-Madison alumna Bridget R. McCurtis delivered a closing keynote talk Oct. 9 at the International Colloquium for Black Males event in Kingston, Jamaica. McCurtis earned her Ph.D. from the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis in 2012. Wisconsin's Equity & Inclusion Laboratory (Wei LAB), along with Ohio State University's Todd Anthony Bell Resource Center on the African American Male, put on the Fourth Annual International Colloquium on Black Males in Education Oct. 6-9 at the University of the West Indies-Mona.

To provide a one-stop shop for students and alumni to find helpful information on career development and success, the UW-Madison School of Education’s Career Center recently unveiled a new and expanded website. The Career Center, which previously was known as Education Portfolios and Career Services, is dedicated to assisting students and alumni from across the School in developing their career and professional identity.

Video from F. King Alexander's recent ​talk via Skype, "Lessons from Louisiana's higher education budget debate," organized the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education (WISCAPE), is now available on the WISCAPE YouTube channel. Alexander is the president of the Louisiana State University system​ and a WISCAPE affiliate. He ​​has been described as one of America's most innovative college presidents. Alexander also is an alumnus of UW-Madison who earned his Ph.D. from the School of Education's Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis in 1996.

A generous gift of $100,000 from the estate of UW-Madison alumnus Robert A. “Bo” Brandt was made to the School of education this past summer. The gift was presented by Joanne Truelove on June 12 to former School of Education Dean Julie Underwood, Associate Dean Dawn Crim and Senior Director of Development Eric Greiling. Truelove is Brandt’s cousin.

A paper by UW-Madison alumna J. Matzner was recently published in the Journal of Dance Education. Her article is titled, “Sitting Ballet: A Pilot Program Designed to Include Children with Physical Disabilities in the Private Studio Environment." Matzner, who teaches Sitting Ballet at the Kehl School of Dance, earned an undergraduate degree from the School of Education’s Dance Department in May 2013.